Bitterness
by I Was Here Moments Ago
Summary: Remus got expelled after the prank and meets Sirius in a bar years later. Past RL/SB


There's a war on, he can feel it in his bones.

He doesn't really know his place here, in the rowdy pub with tension rippling from person to person, infecting them until they turn back to their glasses muttering about how they've never seen a match like it, except if Remus's memory serves, the one the were muttering about last week or the week before and so on. He doesn't really know why they keep watching the football if it gets them this upset, this likely to turn on people who could have been their friends with fists or broken bottles or penknives. And he _really_ doesn't know why this rowdy pub needs a fucking pianist.

It's pretending to be classy and it's not fooling anyone, and that's not just because he's shit at his job. But it puts food on the table. And helps tables be replaced. He doesn't always chain himself up properly during full moons. It's hard without a wand. He'd seen the job advertised and had gone out of mere curiosity rather than any belief in his talent (or lack thereof), wondering what a pub would need to be like to warrant a pianist in an area like this.

To sum it up, the piano had been placed in the particular spot it stood in to cover a blood stain on the carpet.

He keeps playing despite the fact no one's listening to him, despite the fact he's not even listening to himself. He hits wrong notes on purpose just because he can, just because he's going to get paid either way so what's the point in trying? If the regulars continue to return despite the moth eaten curtains and the vomit stained wallpaper then they're going to return if their Beethoven's a bit off. He watches a young couple in matching shell suits across the room, probably pretty early on in the relationship judging by the shy way they are looking at each other. Well, they'd picked an elegant location, he'd give them that.

He wonders briefly if he can get away with not playing at all. Just wait around to get paid, take his money back to the bar and hopefully wake up in a flat a lot nicer than his own. But with his luck there'd be a lull in the noise just as he took his fingers from the keys and this job's the last thing keeping him from starvation so he doesn't risk it. At least not until he feels a hand clasp gently on his shoulder and warm breath smelling of tobacco and peppermint and alcohol at his ear. "You're still bollocks."

Oh how he wishes he'd at least lasted at school until Apparition lessons.

He plasters a smile on his face in preparation, like there could be any preparation for this, and turns around, but he's not quite ready for it, not quite ready for him and it slips right away, not even bothering sticking around to form a grimace.

He's barely changed.

His hair's longer, carelessly disheveled but in a way he knows for a fact took hours to style. There are traces of eyeliner he knows was probably applied yesterday, because his cool grey eyes are tired and bloodshot. They look so much older than twenty two. But then, Sirius Black always did look older than the rest of them. Acted it sometimes too, but it wasn't wisdom or maturity which aged him, it was sullen misanthropy and the air of having nothing left to lose. He notices Sirius's own smile looks strained, awkward even.

Good.

"Well I had a bollocks teacher," Remus replies, remembering that summer before sixth year, their last one together, when Sirius had come to stay and had discovered there was fuck all to do in a house which didn't allow kitchen appliances to be lit on fire for fun like at James's, and had resigned himself to teaching Remus how to play in between making jokes about shagging Remus's mum and actually shagging Remus. Sirius doesn't hear, and nods towards the door, offering him a packet of cigarettes. He glances at the bar. His boss hasn't looked over in about an hour now and he knows Sirius well enough to know that if he doesn't go now he'll only stick around until later because he never quite knew when to piss off, so he takes a cigarette and follows him to the door. At least having to return to work offers him an easy escape.

"That's better," Sirius sighs, leaning against the pub window and breathing in the cold, damp air before he lights up. It takes a couple of attempts; his hands are shaking, but they steady when he notices Remus watching. "You look well," he lies. Remus knows it's a lie. He knows exactly how he looks and _well _certainly isn't it. He says nothing, instead reaching out to take Sirius's lighter, noticing the bruises on his knuckles, fresh cuts across scars. It takes him longer than it took Sirius to light up. "We missed you, Remus," Sirius murmurs, and he can see Sirius looking at him out of his peripheral vision. Remus keeps staring ahead into the empty street. "We wrote."

Remus takes a long drag of the cigarette. "I know." He leans his head back against the wall, and tries to keep his voice light. "It still amazes me how you managed twelve apology letters without ever using the word 'sorry'." He doesn't think he quite managed it, but if he sounds bitter, then good. That's because he is.

Sirius inhales sharply. "Is that why you didn't reply? Because I didn't say _sorry_?" He actually has the nerve to sound affronted.

"Was it really too much to expect?" he murmurs, flicking the ash away with more force than necessary. "I nearly killed someone."

Sirius makes a noise of indignation. "So it's not even that I got you expelled, it's that you nearly hurt _Snivellus_?! _That's _why we've not heard from you in six years?"

"Seven," Remus corrects quietly. There was a time where he wouldn't argue. He'd accept Sirius back, glad to be back in touch, glad to have him in his life again. But he's grown up since then and, hell, he's _not _glad. His life was completely ruined, the future he'd planned out torn to shreds. He's made the best of what he had left, and now Sirius has the nerve to sidle up to him while he's working in a job he never even wanted but which Sirius forced him into? He's _angry_. "Would you like me to be very clear with you, Sirius? Shall I tell you why you've not heard from me since I left school? You sent a child into a trap with a werewolf. You took from me the only place I could have friends who truly understood. I lost my education, my chance at doing more than playing shitty songs in shitty bars for a shitty wage for people too _shitfaced_ to even notice whether I'm there or not. I had _nothing_, I couldn't even get a muggle job because it was too late to start their schools, I don't even have high school qualifications because _you _don't know when to keep your mouth shut. But, yeah, I could have taken that, because I was a pushover and because you three were my best friends. I could have managed if I'd stayed in touch-"

"So why _didn't_-"

"_You didn't fucking apologise, Sirius_! You took everything- _everything_, and you couldn't even say you were sorry! I'd had enough of you - not just you, it was them as well - treating me like _shit_ and-"

"We never treated you like-"

"I let the three of you walk all over me and you knew, you _knew_ what you could fucking get away with and you took _full_ advantage and I'd had _enough_."

Sirius is quiet for a long time. Remus has almost finished the cigarette clasped in his trembling fingers by the time he finally speaks, and when he does it's so quiet Remus almost misses it. "Were we really that bad?"

"No," he says simply. "You were mildly annoying for over half a decade and I let it build up into resentment I didn't even know was there until you pushed me over the edge." He doesn't know how true that is. He certainly never _felt _any resentment during his years at Hogwarts. Not that he knew of. But what he felt opening Sirius's letters after everything had been stripped away... He thinks that maybe, there's something about Sirius's mere presence that's manipulative. Intoxicating. That simply being around him is enough to not only bend you to his will but make you feel like an idiot for wanting to go against it in the first place. And once he was at home, once he was away from that and left to brood and rage and _think_ in peace, maybe that's when it came. But surely, it must have built up. It was an ocean, coming in waves when he'd remember little things which had happened over the years, snide comments or looks or _silences_ which made him feel inferior, which gave him the need to please. That wasn't love, it was teenage desperation, clinging to someone he thought was out of his league. Because they were never really as equal as they liked to think they were, the Marauders. He knows if Peter were here, he'd agree with him. Sure, they'd been young, but that doesn't make what he feels any less potent. He can't help it. He's grown bitter.

"Moony."

The old nickname stirs something in him he tries to push down. It's a longing he remembers spending months repressing, folding away nice and neatly into the corner of his mind, not to be disturbed again, especially not by him, especially not in that voice, the quiet breathy tone he can almost _feel_ against his neck, against his lips. This isn't fair. "Not anymore. Not for a long time."

He's quiet again at that, and Remus doesn't dare look at him. He hears him lighting another cigarette. Five tries. "We never broke up, you know," he says, his voice too light.

"Yes we did," Remus murmurs, finally turning to Sirius just in time to see his fingers clench more tightly around the cigarette.

"Yes, we did," Sirius repeats quietly. He stares off into space for a moment. "This is fucked up, you know? You don't even - there's so much you've missed."

He expected to care more than he does, but that dull stab of longing is nothing compared to what he'd imagined. It barely even hurts. "And you."

"We're fighting a war," Sirius mutters, ignoring him. It's habit, he knows. Too long getting his own way. But there's a sadness in his voice, an old, tired edge which mingles with a strange one he can't quite place whenever Remus meets his eyes. "People have died." He hesitates, and there's a bark of laughter so familiar it has the hairs on the back of Remus's neck standing on end. "James and Lily got married. They have a son. Harry."

He raises his eyebrows just as Sirius looks at him and he feels it again, the longing. It would be so easy to welcome this life back, to catch up with Sirius and to meet Harry and to ask how the hell James had managed it. So easy it scares him. Because he's spent so long building defenses against this, so long convincing himself they don't matter that he can't stop believing it. He doesn't want it anymore, doesn't want to feel fifteen again because he's not and pretending will only open up old wounds it's better he leaves alone. He wasn't happy then. He thought he was, but he can't have been. He's lost all of the good memories. A small part of him, though, knows that that's just because the good ones hurt more than the bad.

"I need to be going back inside," Remus murmurs. This isn't his life anymore. He doesn't _want_ to hear about it. "I can't afford to lose this job."

Sirius blinks at him, as if he's not quite sure he's heard correctly, hurt only passing over his features for a moment before he nods slowly, expressionless. "I'm glad I saw you again," he murmurs. "We should catch up."

There's a hopefulness in his voice even Remus can't bring himself to take away. "Maybe," he nods, pushing open the door to the pub.

And they separate, going back to their own wars, their own battlefields. Sirius is fighting for the future whereas Remus is fighting the past. Sirius uses magic and Remus uses alcohol. Sirius fights with his friends and Remus has just turned his back on the closest one he's got. But they're both soldiers, forced into fights they never wanted, and there's no way out for either of them.

Maybe, one day, they'll meet each other again.

Maybe they won't.


End file.
